6 weeks and counting....

Some guards at El Brujo

Wow, this has gone by much faster than last week, which is definitely good. I love the weekends, but I definitely love the weekdays to because of the kids. Well, before I start rambling off about how awesome this week was, I must first discuss something ever so tragic. Last Saturday, I went shopping with Jayde (intern) and Candy (Peruvian sister) at a big massive market place that had stalls after stalls of shoes. I have never seen so many shoes in one specific area in my entire life. It was there however, that I got my wallet stolen out of my purse. It was there one minute, and then when I went to check again, it was gone!! I totally freaked out and didn’t know what to do, so Candy had to calm me down and take me back home. There I had to break the news to my parents, which they were actually much calmer than I was. So I had no money, no driver’s license, no credit cards, and no student ID cards….NOTHING!!! It was quite traumatic, but after a couple of hours, I was much better.

Huaca Cao Viejo

Dinner then karaoke

The story does have a much happier ending though, I ended up going to this really cool place called El Brujo which is clear out in the middle of nowhere, about an 1 ½ hour away from Trujillo. Jayde and I went with an American we met over here on an internship through USU. She also went with us to the Huacas the week before. At El Brujo, we went to Huaca Cao Viejo, which is very similar to the place that we had gone last week, but the cool thing was that they had recently (within the past 10 years) discovered a woman governor, which meant that they were all men. And they had her at the museum on-site, so we got to see a real life mummy person. It was pretty tight. We ended the night going out to a place called Roky’s which had a karaoke section, so the 3 of us sang karaoke which is definitely a first for me.

Jocelyn

Making bracelets

Well, this week has been quite busy. On Tuesday, we taught some of the older kids how to make friendship bracelets. They are absolutely crazy about them and constantly want to make them now that they know how. I worked with a girl named Jocelyn, but the problem is that she kind of reminds me of my cousin Kade. She tends to make fun of me tease me a lot, but I think that means she likes me in the long run. However, this time wasn’t that fun because she decided to cut off a little bit of my hair when I wasn’t paying attention. But I caught her trying to cut more off and made her stop. I was lucky that she only did a little bit. Overall though, the bracelet making was a success and the kids absolutely loved it!

The finished product

Later on in the week, we did art with a little girl named Perla. I don’t know if I have talked about her before, but she is quite special. In the past, we found out that she really likes to color, so we decided to get a big piece of paper, trace her, and then let her color the whole thing in. It was way fun, and reminded me of preschool because I’m pretty sure I did that too when I was little. She was way good too, she held still while we traced her and let us help color her back in. When we finished, we put it up on the wall and she was so excited to see it all finished. It didn’t matter to her that she had purple hair or her arms were two different colors, she just had fun.

Tracing Perla

Lastly, we decided to teach the kids another game. The game we decided upon was the one where you tie balloons around each person’s leg, then they have to stomp on each other’s without getting theirs stomped on and the last person who has their balloon is the winner. I have no idea what it’s called but we called it Balloon Stomp. As soon as we walked outside with the balloons, the kids went completely nuts! You would think they had never seen a balloon before in life. We tried to calm them down and tell them how to play, but they didn’t wait for us to say go, as soon as the balloons were on their ankles, they took off. Some kids got theirs stomped on right off, so they just had to have another so they could actually play the game (hint of sarcasm). One little girl in particular named Sofia was very smart, she climbed up the soccer goals onto the basket ball hoop and sat there with her balloon and waited till everyone was done. Haha kids here tend to climb like little monkeys. I am proud to say that we only made 2 kids cry because it definitely could have been a whole lot worse.

Overall, this week feels like it has been so much busier than some of the other weeks that I have had. The busy the week however, the fast it ends up going. I truly just can’t believe that in over a month, I will be leaving Peru…..let’s not think about it!!!

Lovin' Peru

This week has been fairly eventful, but as always, let us start with last weekend. Last weekend, Jayde and I met up with Dale and Alessandra (the American's we met during the week) and headed out to some ruins called Huacas del Sol y Luna. It's kind of like Chan Chan, but it is more or an actual temple where only sacrifices and such were done, no one actually lived there. Also, unlike Chan Chan, it is completely authentic (meaning that it hasn't been reconstructed or rebuilt) so everything is how is was when it was discovered. It was way cool, even though the guide that we had only spoke Spanish so Dale and Alessandra had to try and interpret what he was saying for me. Unfortunately, only the Luna Temple is open, so we couldn't go and see the Sol Temple. There are parts in the temple that are still painted too. One story that the guy told us was two warriors would fight with really big staffs and the loser was the one who got knocked out. Then all the losers would then be killed and sacrificed to the gods. Crazy, huh?

Since school is back as I said last week, during the day we tend to spend time with the babies and little kids. There is one baby in particular who I have fallen in love with. Her name is Fatima and she is less than 1 year old. She is so cute and sweet and if I could, I would totally take her home with me when I leave Peru. She is always just so happy and I love making her smile :)

This week, I got the opportunity to wake up at 6:45 every morning and ride with kids in the back of the truck to school. YAY!!! It actually wasn't that bad looking back on it, but I didn't like being up so early every day. My job was to sit in the back of the truck and to make sure all the kids are sitting down the whole time. But it is definitely not just some quite drive in the morning, here in Peru people drive really really fast, so we tend to fly down the road in the mornings. I do enjoy seeing them in the mornings because they all have to wear uniforms to school and they all look so cute in them. haha

Each week, we rotate to difference casa's so we end up eating with all the kids after several weeks. This week I ate in casa 8 which is where a lot of the older girls live. There are a few girls there however who are little or who are quite special. So, when I go over for lunch and dinner, we tend to play around until it is time to eat. There are 3 in particular who tend to fight over my attention. haha I have never felt so loved until 3 girls are sitting there fighting over who gets to play with my hair or sit on my lap. It does make me wish that I could accommodate all of them, but unfortunately I can not.

 I can't believe how fast time has seemed to fly down here in Peru. I almost have about 1 1/2 months left and I just look back and wonder where the time has gone. I truly can't even begin to imagine having to leave this place and saying goodbye to the kids...

Back to school

This week has been probably the most low key it's ever been since I've been here in Peru. The kids started school on Monday, which is just crazy to me especially because they go from about 7:30 in the morning to around 12:30 in the afternoon. They then are home in time for lunch but then do homework for 2 hours. Everyone, even the kids in kindergarten do homework, and it's so much which I guess makes up for only 5 hours or so. Ever since Monday, it has been so quite here in the Aldea, even when the kids are back from school, because they are all in their casa's doing homework. The school system is quite different over here, from what I have gathered. It is definitely not as efficient or as good as America's though that is for sure.

Before I start into to this week, I must as always, talk about last weekend. This last Saturday I took my first surfing lesson. I was very nervous, because I didn't know if I would even be able to stand up. They taught us how to stand of surf board, then we headed out into the ocean. Really the only problem was that our instructor didn't speak very much English. The part though was I was able to understand a good part of what he said, even though he did try to keep it simple for me. haha It took several times, but I finally was able to stand up and surf. At one point however, I was able to surf all the way to the beach (which wasn't really that far now that I think about it). It was such a thrill and I really hope to take another lesson while I am here in Peru.

So, this week has been really long actually. It hasn't flown by like most of the other weeks here. On Monday's and Wednesday's there is a little boy named Fabricio who is a little bit more than 1 year old whom we take to the hospital for physical therapy. So, it was my turn this week to take him, but this entails sitting in a crowed truck with sometimes 7 people shoved together in the back for several hours. Therapy doesn't often take very long, but when it's over I must sit there with Fabricio on my lap, and wait for the truck to come back, but then I must sit in the truck and wait until everyone else is ready to go back to the Aldea. It may not seem like much but it ends up being a very long day.

Women's Day Celebration

On Thursday we got woken up at 8 in the morning by one of the ladies who work in the office, to tell us that it was Women's Day. Now, we had no idea what that even was, but she told us they were going to give us breakfast so who was I to argue? So we hurriedly get dressed and go towards the office. We are unfortunately soon told that we have to blow balloons up instead. haha, ya that tends to happen a lot, saying one thing then something else actually happening. After we get the balloons blown up, we had to glue quotes onto them that say special things about women (I think, they were in Spanish). We take them into the women having breakfast to then be told we get breakfast now as well as one of the balloons. So, that was the excitingness of how I celebrated Women's Day.

Nicolas

Maria-Luisa

On Friday, I got to play with a little boy named Nicolas who is new at the Aldea. He is 2 years old and the sweetest little boy. I was able to play with him, one-on-one so we decided to color. We sat there and just colored in a coloring book, and then ate some watermelon together. It may sound boring and trivial, but often times I've learned those are the most enjoyable and memorial. Another time that I really enjoyed playing one-on-one with a kid was on Tuesday. Maria-Luisa and I got to play on the jungle gym that there have at the Aldea. We did everything from swinging, to the teeter-totter, to the slide. My favorite part was that every time she would climb up the slide, she would get up to the top then realize the slide was hot so she would climb back down. This happened several times even though the same thing happened each time. She is such a sweetheart!

Oh my goodness, I almost forgot something. On Thursday night as I was finishing dinner, one of the other interns came in to tell me they were unloading cobayas. Cobayas are guinea pigs, but here they aren't pets. No, here they eat them. I was so excited to see them though when they brought them in. They were just in the bed of a truck and then the kids put them in these crates to haul them into a big corral sort of place. Later, I found out that we are suppose to breed them, and then I don't know if the Aldea is going to feed them to the kids or sell them. I hope they sell them, I don't think that I can eat a cute little guinea pig because apparently they don't really look that different when they are cooked.....

Even though this week hasn't been that exciting as some of the others weeks here have been, I have definitely enjoyed myself. Sometimes the non-eventful weeks are the most relaxing and enjoyable.

Crazy!

Wow, this week has been crazy! The first part of the week was actually much more exciting than the end of the week, but sometimes that's just how it is. Before I start talking about this week though I must, as always, discuss what I did last weekend. Last weekend was kind of particularly special for me because it was my birthday on Saturday.

This birthday was definitely different than any type of birthday I've ever had before, but in a good way. It was super laid back and low-key which I really wanted in the first place. For lunch, the family that I stay with on the weekends, made a casserole for me and wrote "Happy Birthday Lauren" and put a princess candle in it for me to blow out just like a birthday cake. haha I LOVED it!! Later, I went shopping (yay) and ate Pizza Hut for my birthday dinner. You have no idea how nice it was to be able to eat pizza. When you leave to go to a foreign country, you don't really think about all the food you are going to miss, but I had definitely been craving pizza. So, this past weekend was mostly certainly an enjoyable weekend.




Now, as for the week events...I found out that the kids go back to school this coming Monday, so Tuesday we had a big party to celebrate the end of summer as well as Carnival. So to prepare, on Monday they rounded up the 4 sheep here at the Aldea, and killed one for us to eat for the party on Tuesday.

I was so confused at first, watching the kids trying to herd the sheep into a corner, but I was soon told they were going to kill one for us to eat. I'm not going to lie, I was actually quite interested in it. I didn't get to watch them kill it, but I did watch them string it up from a tree, skin it, and cut out its insides. It was actually pretty fascinating. I took tons of pictures. haha plus, the kids seemed to really really enjoy watching it. There was always a big group watching the Tio's and they were always willing to help. When they cut the head and legs off, the kids fought over who got to hold the head.

When they actually gutted the poor sheep, they took time to teach us the different parts of the sheep. Such as the stomach (which was huge), the heart, the liver, the lungs, etc. So, it was quite education as well as really awesome to see!!!

Many of the kids watched the whole time.
(If you look closely towards the bottom of the sheep, the outsides are hanging out)

The kids trying to pull the tree back up after
toys have been tied to it

Tuesday then dawned bright and early. One of the first things that happened was that they cut down a tree and put it in the middle of the Aldea. I was confused as to why they put it there instead of just threw it away, but I was then informed that we tie toys and prizes to the tree, then put it back up in the ground, and then chop it down again and let the kids run wild trying to get something. So, us interns got to tie string around all the toys,then tie them to the tree.
For lunch all of the houses came together in the front part of the Aldea to eat together. We ate the sheep that they had killed the day before which was surprisingly very good. I really enjoyed it and it was fun to eat together with everyone. After lunch, we had the biggest water fight ever. I thought the last one we had was big, but EVERYONE participated for this one, even some of the Tio's.
Just as it was starting, we decided to fill up water balloons then run outside and ambush the kids. When they found out we had balloons, they kept trying to get into our pockets so they could fill up their own. We were also armed with buckets so we could fill them up and dump them over people. It was so much fun to see all of the kids having fun and some ended up ganging up on kids who were participating and dragging them over so everyone could dumb water on them.
After a while, someone got the fabulous idea to start smearing shoe polish over people. Once that started, others went to get more shoe polish to throw. One intern in particular was subjected to black shoe polish that ended up covering her whole face. But, we soon retaliated and went to our casa to get some paint that we had and we started throwing that at everyone. The kids who couldn't get a hold of any paint or polish just continued to throw water or started to throw mud. By the time the fight was declared over, everyone, and I do mean everyone, was covered from head to toe with paint/polish, mud, and drenched. It was one of the days that I will forever remember!!!!!

From L to R: Jayde, Lauren, Frances, Wendy

So like I said, the most exciting parts of the week happened towards the beginning, and the end of the week wasn't super interesting. We did just a lot of the same things that we do every week. Ever since we taught the kids how to play steal the flag, they have been obsessed with it and only want to play that. Even when we try and teach them other games, they play only to humor us, but then soon demand that we play steal the flag. But, I guess once you find something that everyone seems to enjoy, you might as well go with it. :D